Get Reading Festival: Taking on illiteracy – together

Our award-winning Get London Reading campaign exceeded all expectations, says David Cohen

Friday 12 July 2013 08:45 BST

It all began with the inspiring story of Aurella Brzezowska, a feisty seven-year-old who did not have a single book at home, but learned to read with the help of a reading volunteer. Launched in the summer of 2011, our Get London Reading campaign stirred thousands of Londoners to generously volunteer their time or donate money in the wake of shocking statistics that one in four of London’s 11-year-olds were unable to read and write at the nationally required level.

Our campaign was meant to run for just one year, but the response from our readers exceeded all expectations: we raised £1 million, securing four years of funding for our partner charity Beanstalk, including £500,000 from the Mayor’s Fund for London. The money supports 600 volunteers who help 2,000 children in 290 London schools.

And now comes today’s fantastic – and free – Get Reading festival, marking a bold new moment in our campaign and brings in NOOK, owned by American bookselling heavyweight Barnes & Noble, as a new partner in the battle against illiteracy.

NOOK has already donated 1,000 eReaders to our reading helpers and has sponsored Saturday’s unique readathon, which will see Trafalgar Square transformed into a literary festival extravaganza, with a giant stage, interactive screens and a comfy reading chair.

The great lineup will be hosted by much-loved comedy duo Dick and Dom and includes famous authors alongside stars from Hollywood, TV, the West End and the world of fashion. Prepare to be captivated by readings from the likes of Hugh Grant, Rupert Everett, Homeland star David Harewood, model Lily Cole, actor Warwick Davis, children’s laureate Malorie Blackman, actress Niamh Cusack, and dozens more.

Anthony Horowitz, author of the Alex Rider series, has written a piece especially for the day, while EastEnders and Carry On star Barbara Windsor will be performing a double-act with Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the Evening Standard and Independent newspapers.

The readings will be spiced up with live performances from Matilda the Musical, Wicked, Billy Elliot the Musical, Horrible Histories, Sylvia Young Theatre School and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

Among the audience will be hundreds of schoolchildren whose literacy has improved in leaps and bounds thanks to help from our stellar reading volunteers, including 100 pupils from our flagship school St Mary’s Catholic Primary in Battersea and its sister school Sacred Heart.

More than any school, St Mary’s perfectly showcases the success of the Get London Reading model. Two years ago, the school was one of the worst performing in London, with just 53 per cent of 11-year-olds passing Sats in English and maths. But after their new executive headteacher Jared Brading bravely bought in to the Standard model, taking on an army of 25 reading volunteers and agreeing to become our prime test case, the school managed to catapult into the Top 10 highest achieving schools in the capital, boasting a 100 per cent success rate in Sats English and maths, a remarkable turnaround in just one year.

Our reading volunteer programme has been lauded far and wide, and has been visited by Prime Minister David Cameron, Mayor Boris Johnson, the Duchess of Cornwall, Stephen Fry, Kevin Pietersen, Kathy Lette, Simon Mayo, Harry Enfield, EU Commissioner for Education Androulla Vassiliou and chair of the EU high level group Princess Laurentien.

We have given St Mary’s a wonderful new school library – unbelievably it never had one – fitted out for free by Selfridges and stocked with 1,000 new books thanks to donations from half a dozen publishers.

Our plan to flood St Mary’s with 85 reading volunteers over three years was funded by a whopping £100,000 donation from Ukrainian billionaire Kostyantin Zhevago, and the outstanding results led to interest from The Mayor’s Fund for London. They then invested £500,000 into Get London Reading which helped to fund Beanstalk volunteers in more schools, which included seven further flagship schools in inner-city boroughs.

The Get London Reading campaign has won a clutch of awards both for its hard-hitting journalism and groundbreaking philanthropic contribution to the capital, and has drawn praise from the Education Commissioner of the European Union as well as inspiring similar initiatives in other UK cities.

NOOK, Beanstalk and The Mayor’s Fund for London will have marquees in Trafalgar Square, as will the Standard, and anyone who wants to sign up as reading helpers can do so.

Jim Hilt, managing director of Barnes & Noble International, said he was thrilled that the big day was finally upon us: “Getting kids and families excited about reading is at the heart of ensuring that we build a literate society. The Get Reading event in Trafalgar Square brings books to life in a spectacular way. With the participation of so many prominent authors and celebrities, along with a lineup of some of the best stories ever written, the NOOK team is excited to be part of such an important effort in the UK.”

The Reading Agency charity will support the occasion by launching their 2013 Summer Reading Challenge at the Square in partnership with public libraries. It’s the UK’s biggest children’s reading for pleasure programme, inspiring 750,000 children aged four to 11 to read six library books of their choice in the summer holidays. Thanks to support from the Society of Chief Librarians, there will be roving librarians in the Square and in The Reading Agency’s marquee so families can get advice, log on to summerreadingchallenge.org.uk, or join the library.

The National Gallery will be providing an extra dimension to the day by bringing reproductions of three famous paintings on to the Square itself so that Gallery experts can recount their fascinating stories. The paintings are Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne (1520-23), Paolo Uccello’s Saint George and the Dragon (1470), and Joseph Wright of Derby’s An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768).

But the thrill of being transported by our favourite writers and actors reading from treasured books as we jointly follow along will be the constant highlight of a day that is shaping up as a “not-to-be-missed” moment. It will be an extraordinary six hours – thousands of Londoners brought together by the power of story burnished by brilliant storytellers in an iconic setting.